Dear Ma and Pa: I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer The Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before maybe all of the places are filled. I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m., but am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot And shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing. Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there’s warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food. But tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that Live on coffee. Their food plus yours holds you till noon when you get fed again. It’s no wonder these city boys can’t walk much. We go on “route” marches, which the Platoon Sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it is not my place to tell him different. A “route march” is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks. The country is nice, but awful flat. The Sergeant is like a schoolteacher. He nags some. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and Colonels just ride around and frown. They don’t bother you none. This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don’t know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don’t move. And it ain’t shooting at you, like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don’t even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes. Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain’t like fighting with that ole bull at home. I’m about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. He joined up the same time as me. But I’m only 5’6″ and 130 pounds and he’s 6’8″ and weighs near 300 pounds dry. Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in. Your loving daughter, Gail

The teacher gave her class an assignment: Have their parents tell them a story with a moral. The next day the kids returned with their stories. Little Ashley said, “I live on a farm and we have a lot of hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market when my little brother dropped the basket and they all broke. So the moral of this story is, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!’” “Very good,” said the teacher. Next Sarah raised her hand and said, “Our family are farmers too, but we raise chickens for meat. We had a dozen eggs one time, but when they hatched we only got five live chicks. The moral is, ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch!’” “Very good, Sarah. Now Little Johnny, do you have a story?” “My daddy told me this story about Aunt Karen. She was a fighter pilot in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of whiskey, a machine gun and a machete. She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn’t break, then she landed in the middle of 100 Iraqi troops. She killed 70 of them with the machine gun until she ran out of bullets, then she killed 20 more with the machete till the blade broke. Then she chased down and strangled the last 10 with her bare hands.” “Good heavens,” said the horrified teacher, “what kind of moral did your daddy tell you from that horrible story?” And his reply — “Stay the hell away from Aunt Karen when she’s been drinking!

A farmer walked into a bar and saw the local tractor salesman sitting there, head hung low, obviously upset, drowning his sorrows in his beer. “What’s up, John?” asked the farmer. “Gosh Bob, I’ll tell you what … if I don’t sell a tractor soon, I’m gonna have to close my shop.” “Now John, things could be worse,” said Bob. “How do you figure?” asked John. “Well, John – you know my ornery cow, Bessie? I went to milk her this morning and she just kept flicking her tail in my face. So I grabbed a piece of rope and tied it up to the rafter. Then, the nasty thing went and kicked the bucket away! So I tied her leg to the wall. Then she kicked my stool right out from underneath me! But I was out of rope. So I took my belt off and used it to tie her other leg to the other side of the stall. Well wouldn’t you just know it…my damn pants fell down.” “And John, if you can convince my wife that I was in there to MILK that cow, I’ll buy a tractor from you TODAY!”

Two missionaries in Africa get apprehended by a tribe of very hostile cannibals who put them in a large pot of water, build a huge fire under it, and leave them there. A few minutes later, one of the missionaries starts to laugh uncontrollably. The other missionary can’t believe it! He says, “Whats wrong with you? We’re being boiled alive! They’re gonna eat us! What could possibly be funny at a time like this?” The other missionary says, “I just peed in the soup.”

There was an old cowhand who owned a small ranch in Montana. The Montana Wage & Hour Dept. claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him.”I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them,” demanded the agent.
“Well,” replied the rancher, “There’s my ranch hand who’s been with me for 3 years. I pay him $600 a week plus free room and board.”

“The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $500 per week plus free room and board.”

“Then there’s the half-wit who works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night.”

On the first day God created the cow. God said, You must go to field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer. I will give you a life span of sixty years. The cow said, Thats a kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. Let me have twenty years and Ill give back the other forty. And God agreed. On the second day, God created the dog. God said, Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. I will give you a life span of twenty years. The dog said, Thats too long to be barking. Give me ten years and Ill give back the other ten. So God agreed (sigh). On the third day God created the monkey. God said, entertain people, do monkey tricks, make them laugh. Ill give you a twenty year life span. Monkey said, How boring, monkey tricks for twenty years? I dont think so. Dog gave you back ten, so thats what Ill do too, okay? And God agreed again. On the fourth day God created man. God said, Eat, sleep, play, have sex, enjoy. Do nothing, just enjoy, enjoy. Ill give you twenty years. Man said, What? Only twenty years? No way man. Tell you what, Ill take my twenty, and the forty cow gave back, and the ten dog gave back and the ten monkey gave back. That makes eighty, okay? Okay, said God. Youve got a deal. So that is why for the first twenty years we eat, sleep, play, have sex, enjoy, and do nothing; for the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family; for the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain our grandchildren; and for the last ten years we sit in front of the house and bark at everybody.

This fellow had owned this large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back forty, had it fixed up nice, picnic tables, horseshoe courts, basketball court, etc. The pond was fixed for swimming when it was built.

One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond as he hadn’t been there for a while and look it over. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee. As he came closer he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end of the pond.

One of the women shouted to him, “We’re not coming out until you leave!”

The old man replied, “I didn’t come down here to watch you ladies swim or make you get out of the pond, I only came to feed my alligators!!”

A pheasant was standing in a field chatting to a bull, ” I would love to be able to get to the top of yonder tree” sighed the pheasant, “but I haven’t got the energy.” “Well, why don’t you nibbleon some of my droppings?” replied the bull. “It’s packed with nutrients.” The pheasant pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the first branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch and so on. Finally, after the fourth night there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree whereupon he was spotted by a farmer who dashed into the farmhouse, emerged with a shotgun and shot the pheasant right out of the tree.

“You can’t catch ducks with duck tape!” the farmer yells back. “Sure I can!” the kid says, and takes off down the road. He comes back at the end of the day and again, the farmer can’t believe his eyes. The kid had a whole bunch of ducks all wrapped up tightly in his tape.

The next day the farmer’s sitting on his porch again, and the kid comes walking down the road carrying a stick.